Course Description
This course will focus on issues relating to globalization, migration, and
the changing public sphere in relation to Latino/a identity and
performance in the United States. How do "barrios" reconstitute the idea
of homeland even as they allow populations to adapt to a new
environment? The image of "borders," evoked metaphorically in much
contemporary theory, elides specific geographic, political and economic
conditions that separate Latinos from their lands of origin. For Mexicans,
the border is a heavily policed space; for Nuyoricans it's a
"charco" or puddle dividing them from the island. For Cubans who cannot
return to the island, there's no there there. Central Americans are often
refugees of civil wars financed, in part, by the U.S. itself. We will pay
close attention to the different development of Latino communities by
focusing on several Latino barrios in New York City. How has public space
changed in response to the steady immigration of Latino/as? We also turn
to the 2000 census to analyze the ways that US Latino/as have changed the
understanding of race in the US today. Through the study of plays,
performances, performance venues (i.e. Nuyorican Poets Cafe), religious
and healing practices, mural paintings, casitas, we will explore how
Latino/a artists negotiate these real and imagined spaces. Course readings
include works by theorists such as Jon McKensie, Edward Soja, Mary Louise
Pratt, Lourdes Arizpe, Arjun Appadurai, Nestor Garcia Canclini, Juan
Flores, Perez Firmat and others.
This is the fourth course to be developed and taught in conjunction with
the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, a Ford and
Rockefeller foundations-funded research and teaching consortia between
NYU and several Latin American Universities. As such, the course,
"Globalization, Migration,and the Public Sphere" is being taught
simultaneously at NYU, at the University of Rio de Janeiro, at the
Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru in Lima, Ohio State University,
the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (CRIM, Centro Regional de
Investigaciones Multi-disciplinarios) and the Universidad Autonoma de
Nuevo Leon (Monterrey). Each course follows a similarly structured
syllabus, and shares an essential reading list. The four courses are
coordinated through a shared website, which houses course readings, web
resources, web-boards for working group and institution-based
discussions, as well as images and short video clips related to the
course. In addition, students from all institutions are expected to
participate in ongoing discussion sessions on web-boards and
collaborative web-based final projects.
|
